Bloomability
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About this ebook
My second life began when I was kidnapped by two complete strangers . . .
That the kidnappers are actually Aunt Sandy and Uncle Max makes no difference to thirteen-year-old Domenica Santolina Doone, better known as Dinnie--she just doesn't want to go. Dinnie's accustomed to change, with her family constantly moving for "opportunity"--but when her aunt and uncle whisk her far away to an international school in Switzerland, she's not sure she's ready to face this "opportunity" alone.
All at once she finds herself in a foreign country, surrounded by kids from different cultures speaking all sorts of languages and sharing various beliefs. Home and her first life seem so far away.
But new friendships and the awesome beauty of Switzerland begin to unlock thoughts and dreams within her. Her joys and struggles make up a rich tapestry of experiences she can find nowhere else. Switzerland begins to be more than a temporary home--it becomes a part of Dinnnie herself, the self she never knew she could be.
Switzerland is the picturesque backdrop of Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech's new novel about a young girl discovering the beauty of nature, her place in the world, the value of friendship--and that life is full of wonderful "bloomabilites."
Sharon Creech
Sharon Creech has written twenty-one books for young people and is published in over twenty languages. Her books have received awards in both the U.S. and abroad, including the Newbery Medal for Walk Two Moons, the Newbery Honor for The Wanderer, and Great Britain’s Carnegie Medal for Ruby Holler. Before beginning her writing career, Sharon Creech taught English for fifteen years in England and Switzerland. She and her husband now live in Maine, “lured there by our grandchildren,” Creech says. www.sharoncreech.com
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Reviews for Bloomability
300 ratings20 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I really love this book. The characters are vivid, the setting lovingly described, and the story interesting and original. Its not an overly complicated book, but is well written and fulfilling to read.
I feel like I relate more to the protagonist of this book than the others in Sharon Creech's stories. Not really for situational reasons but in terms of personality and way of thinking. The main character, Dinnie, has a lot of fears and doubts but also a capacity for wonder and joy that I love reading about and find personally cathartic. A firm 5 stars. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I dunno. I'm a big fan of Creech, and I like the ideas & characters she shared here. I'm not sure however how honest the voice was - would a child really be this perceptive? If you like Creech or are intrigued by the premise of meeting a bunch of students from around the world at a Swiss boarding school, go ahead and try it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5this book is great
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dinnie's family has always moved around a lot, thanks to her father's dreaming and search for new opportunities. When her brother and sister's problems become overwhelming, Dinnie is suddenly shipped off with her aunt and uncle to spend a year with them in Switzerland at the school where her uncle is headmaster, In spite of her fears, Dinnie gains new friends and knowledge about herself and the world. Her aunt and uncle and their school provide just the stability and nurturing that help Dinnie appreciate the beauties of Switzerland and the European culture.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Sweet, predictable, somewhat formulaic- kid goes to Switzerland, adjusts, makes friends, is sad to leave, grows in understanding, becomes more mature. Still, charming in parts, and quite readable.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bloomability by Sharon Creech was one of my favorite books as a child. I had all but forgotten it until recently, only recalling that it had made an impact on my adolescence. Once I picked it up to reread as an adult, it was like I was a kid again. I understood the narrator, Dinnie, and her confusion with life. Her family dynamic is complicated, so you'd think that having her aunt and uncle whisk her away to a middle school in Switzerland would be an adventure and relief. But Dinnie knows about adventure, and what she needs is stability and opportunity to just be herself. And that's exactly what she finds, in the last place she'd expect.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bloomability is a book written by Sharon Creech about a 13 year old girl named Dinnie Doone who lives with her family in Abiquiu New Mexico, when her aunt and uncle take her all the way Switzerland where she will attend her uncle’s boarding school. The term Bloomability comes from her new Japanese friend keisuke, as his version of possibilities. This book is a great read for a school assignment, a quick read, a group read or even book clubs. Even though it is a fiction book it has a little geography and a hint of romance. Sharon does a great job creating Dinnie’s character, even though we have nothing in common I could easily relate to her pain and loneliness. There are many other intricate characters and I guarantee you will find one you can connect with. I was a little disappointed with the ending, I personally like when books have a solid ending but many other people I know like cliff hangers where they can choose the end so that it satisfies them. Other than that I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to all age groups, even adults will enjoy this exciting story of Dinnie’s adventures.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dinnie Doone has grown up moving. In fact, by the time she was 13 she had moved over 14 times! But when Dinnie moves from a small town in New Mexico to scenic Switzerland, her whole world changes. When she makes new friends and is faced to make decisions she has never had before, Dinnie looks at her self and finds who she really is. Sharon Creech does a great job targeting her audience. Because Dinnie is 13 years old, I would recommend this book to a middle school aged student in the need for a book club novel. The book was easy to get through but had a lot of meaning and thought within it. Praise to Sharon Creech for a great piece to read and an amazing book to discuss.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bloomability, by Sharon Creech, is a story about a young girl named Dinnie Doone, who leaves her life following her father around the United States looking for "new job opportunities" to go live at a boarding school in Switzerland with her aunt and uncle. At first, Dinnie isn't sure what to make of her new setting, with students from around the world and the gorgeous landscape that is nothing like back home. But after Dinnie learns that everyone there is new, just like her, she realizes that she can take a hold of all the "bloomabilities" around her and develop into a person she never dreamed of being. Bloomability is a very-well written story that has great character development and an enticing plot. This book would be best for adolescents and anyone who enjoys a great read. Out of many amazing novels by Sharon Creech, Bloomability is surely one of her finest.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved this book when I was 10 years old. It one of Creech's more "cutesy" novels but it is still a story of self-discovery. I think many other middle-school aged children should be able to identify with this book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5“Bloomability”Domenica Santolina Doone, Dinnie, was moving again. For as long as she could remember Daddy would pack his bag and go to where the “opportunities” were. Dinnie had a box with all her memories in it. She never put a new address in the box until they had left that place. The year Dinnie turned fourteen; her parents told her she had a great “opportunity.” Her uncle was the headmaster at a Swiss finishing school and she was going to live with them and go to school there. Dinnie was not so sure she liked this new opportunity. She loved her family and wanted to stay with them. During her year in Switzerland, Dinnie has to grow up a lot. She does not hear from her family very often. She ends up making great friends in school and learns a lot about life and growing up. I liked this book because it addresses the problem that people have with changes in their lives. One great activity would be a quick write about what memories you would put in a shoebox to keep. Another one would be to have the students make their own shoeboxes to keep their memories from the school year in. I rated this book four star, because it is a great read and reminds me about the hesitation with which you met new “opportunities.”
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 year old Domenica Santolina Doone, otherwise known as Dinnie, has lived in 12 different states in her 12 years as her father keeps chasing that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Then her uncle gets a job as the headmaster of the American School in Switzerland and he and his wife take Dinnie along to live with them and attend this international boarding school. Dinnie's world opens up into a rich field of friends from a smorgasbord of international backgrounds, skiing and hiking in breathtakingly beautiful mountains, great teachers, fieldtrips around Europe and learning Italian. There are some very amusing events, mostly stemming from Dinnie's attempts at learning Italian, and the story has an undeniable appeal to it. The American School seems almost too wonderful to be real...for two weeks the whole school body moves to a hotel in St. Moritz and hold abbreviated classes in the morning and evening so everyone can ski during the mid-day. However, the plot is somewhat thin and there is not a whole lot going on other than making friends and going to classes, but Creech manages to make even these mundane things interesting. Major themes are the ties of friendship and change.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bloomability by Sharon Creech- Dinnie is sent to live with her aunt and uncle in Switzerland. Her uncle, Max, is the headmaster of a boarding school where Dinnie becomes a new student. She makes new friends and gets to see new things. One day two of her friends are trapped in an avalanche, but Dinnie was watching and able to point out where they were. Both friends are saved. At the end of the story Dinnie is given the choice of going back to America to stay or for just the summer. We are left guessing which choice she will make.I always like books that leave you guessing about what really happens after the book ends. Most of my students however do not like stories with no definite ending.One extension activity after reading this in class would be to have the students write their own continuation of what happens after the book ends.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book is hilarious! I really liked it. I love how she got "kidnapped" Overall, I really nice story
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book is realistic fiction, and it is a great example because it is set in todays world. It is set in both U.S.A and in Switzerland, and during this time period. The characters are all very believable. I would say this would be appropriate for intermediate grades and up. I enjoyed it greatly and I would use this book in the classroom to show them what possibilities they have in life, and also how students around the world live. I think this book is a great example of plot, the plot goes up and down through out leaving the reader wanting more. In the end the book the plot is highly elevated, but there is good resolution in the end making everyone happy .
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I think this book is fulll of adventure and many freindships.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Summary: Dinnie has been "kidnapped"! By who you ask? Why none other then her Aunt and Uncle. That's right they have "kidnapped" her and taken her to her Uncle's boarding school in Switzerland. That's so unfair right! Right?.....right?Review: Oh, no the book list actually picked a good book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved this book. It is Sharon Creech's finest work. An inspiring story of Dinnie and how she finds out more about herself in her year abroad at an international school. Absolutely excellent!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really enjoy this book and it makes me extremely jealous of kids who had the opportunity to go to a school like this where a good majority of the students come from countries all over the world and speak all different languages. The descriptions of Switzerland make you want to hop right on a plane and never come back. The story is a good one and you can feel the main character grow and change for the better. It also has some scary moments and a lot of laughs. It is also possible to pick up some Italian, Spanish, and Japanese words.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I've loved this book since I was quite young, and every time I read it I can look at it in a different way. There's just something magical about the whole story, and I like it far better that "Walk Two Moons".
Book preview
Bloomability - Sharon Creech
1
First Life
In my first life, I lived with my mother, and my older brother and sister, Crick and Stella, and with my father when he wasn’t on the road. My father was a trucker, or sometimes a mechanic or a picker, a plucker or painter. He called himself a Jack-of-all-trades (Jack was his real name), but sometimes there wasn’t any trade in whatever town we were living in, so off he would go in search of a job somewhere else. My mother would start packing, and we’d wait for a phone call from him that would tell us it was time to join him.
He’d always say, I found us a great place! Wait’ll you see it!
Each time we moved, we had fewer boxes, not more. My mother would say, "Do you really need all those things, Dinnie? They’re just things. Leave them."
By the time I was twelve, we’d followed my father from Kentucky to Virginia to North Carolina to Tennessee to Ohio to Indiana to Wisconsin to Oklahoma to Oregon to Texas to California to New Mexico. My things fit in one box. Sometimes we lived in the middle of a noisy city, but most of the time Dad had found us a tilted house on a forgotten road near a forgotten town.
My mother had been a city girl, my father a country boy; and as far as I could tell, my mother spent most of her time trying to forget that she’d been a city girl. Those few times that we lived in the middle of the city, though, she seemed as if she were right at home, in her real home, her permanent home. She’d get a job in an office or a design studio, instead of a diner. She knew how to use buses and weave in and out of crowds, and she didn’t seem to hear the horns and sirens and jackhammers.
Those things drove my father crazy. "I know there’s work here, he’d say,
but there’s too many bodies and cars everywhere. You’re like to get killed just stepping into the road. No place to raise kids."
My mother would be real quiet after he’d said something like this, and pretty soon he’d be off looking for a better place to live, and she’d be packing again. My sister Stella had a theory that Dad was keeping us on the move so my mother’s family wouldn’t find us. He didn’t trust a single one of her brothers or sisters, and he didn’t trust her parents, either. He thought they had airs
and would talk my mother into moving back to New York, where she’d come from. He said they looked down their noses at us.
Once, when I was seven or eight, and we were living in Wisconsin—or no, maybe it was Oklahoma—or it could’ve been Arkansas (I forgot Arkansas—we lived there for six months, I believe), a thin woman with gray hair pulled back in a tight bun was sitting in our kitchen one day when I came home from school. Before I could shake off my coat, she’d wrapped me in a perfumed hug and called me carissima and her sweet kitten.
I’m not a kitten,
I said, sliding out the side door. Crick was throwing a basketball at an invisible hoop.
There’s a lady in there,
I said.
Crick aimed, shot that ball into a graceful high arc, and watched it bounce off the edge of the garage next door. Crud,
he said, that’s no lady. That’s your grandma Fiorelli.
There was a big argument that night after I’d gone to bed behind the drapes hung between the kitchen and the side room. My Dad was gone—he’d taken one look at our lady grandma and bolted out the door, never even pausing to say hello. It was Mom and Grandma in the kitchen.
Mom was telling her how resourceful Dad was, and how he could do anything, and what a rich life we had. From the bed next to mine, Stella said, Mom’s a dreamer.
In the kitchen, Grandma said, Rich? This is a rich life?
My mother charged on. Money isn’t everything, Ma,
she said.
"And why you go and let him name that boy Crick? What kind of name is that? Sounds like he was raised in a barn."
My parents had had an agreement. Dad got to name any boys they had, and Mom got to name the girls. Dad told me he’d named Crick after a clear little crick that ran beside the house they’d lived in at the time. Once, when I used the word crick in a paper for school, the teacher crossed it out and wrote creek above it. She said crick wasn’t a real word. I didn’t tell Dad that. Or Crick either.
Mom named her first girl (my sister) Stella Maria. Then I came along, and she must have been saving up for me, because she named me Domenica Santolina Doone. My name means Sunday-Southern-Wood-River. I was born on a Sunday (which makes me blessed, Mom said), and at the time we lived in the South beside woods and a river. My name is pronounced in the Italian way: Doe-MEN-i-kuh. Domenica Santolina Doone. It’s a mouthful, so most people call me Dinnie.
In the kitchen, Grandma Fiorelli was steaming on. You ought to think of yourself,
she said. You ought to think of those children. They could be in a school like the one your sister works in. Your husband needs a real job—
He has a real job—
"Every six months? Basta! Grandma said.
Why he can’t keep a job for more than six months at a time? What does he do, anyway? Why he didn’t go to college so he could get a real job? How are you going to get out of this mess?"
He’s looking for the right opportunity,
my mother said. He could do anything—anything at all. He just needs a break—
Grandma’s voice got louder every time she started up again. She was bellowing like a bull by this time. "A break? É ridicolo! And how he is going to get a break if he doesn’t even have a college education? Answer me that!"
Everybody doesn’t need a college education,
my mother said.
When we come to this country, your father and I, we know not a word of English, but you kids got a college education—
Stella threw a pillow at me. Don’t listen, Dinnie,
she said. Put your head under this and go to sleep.
The pillow didn’t drown out Grandma Fiorelli, though. She barreled on. And what about you?
Grandma said to my mother. There you are, a perfectly well-trained artist, and I bet you don’t even have a paintbrush to your name.
I paint,
my mother said.
"Like what? Walls? Falling down, peeling walls? Basta! You ought to talk to your sister—"
The next morning Grandma Fiorelli was gone, and so was Dad. He’d gone looking for a new place to live. He’d heard of an opportunity, he said.
And so we followed him around, from opportunity to opportunity, and as we went, Crick got into more and more trouble. Crick said it wasn’t his fault that every place we went, he met up with people who made him do bad things. According to Crick, some boys in Oklahoma made him throw rocks at the school windows, and some boys in Oregon made him slash a tire, and some boys in Texas made him smoke a joint, and some boys in California made him burn down a barn, and some boys in New Mexico made him steal a car.
Every time we moved, Dad told him, You can start over.
And with each move, Stella got quieter and quieter. Within a week of our reaching a new town, there’d be boys pounding on the door day and night, wanting to see her. All kinds of boys: tough ones, quiet ones, nerdy ones, cool ones.
In California, when she was sixteen, she came home one Sunday night, after having been gone all weekend with one of her girlfriends, supposedly, and said she’d gotten married.
No you didn’t,
Dad said.
Okay, I didn’t,
she said, and went on up to bed.
She told me she’d married a Marine, and she showed me a marriage certificate. The Marine was going overseas. Stella started eating and eating and eating. She got rounder and rounder and rounder. When we were in that hill town in New Mexico, she woke me up one night and said, Get Mom, and get her quick.
Stella was having a baby. Dad was on the road, Crick was in jail, and Stella was having a baby.
And that was the last week of my first life.
2
The Dot
The Dreams of Domenica Santolina Doone
My mother bundled me up in a brown cardboard box and taped it all around and gave it to the strangers. I rumbled along and then I was in the bottom of an airplane next to another box which barked. There was a dog biscuit in the bottom of my box, and when I got hungry, I ate it.
My second life began when I was kidnapped by two complete strangers. My mother, who assisted in this kidnapping, said I was exaggerating. The strangers weren’t complete strangers. I’d met them twice before. They were my mother’s sister and her husband: Aunt Sandy and Uncle Max. They swooped down on our little New Mexico hill town and stayed up all night talking to my mother. In the morning, we all went to see Stella and her new baby boy, and then my aunt and uncle forced me into their car (okay, they didn’t completely force me, but no one asked my opinion about this kidnapping). With me was my box of things, and we drove to the airport in Albuquerque.
I was still pretty much in bubble mode. It seemed that all around me was a smooth bubble, clear enough to see through, but strong enough to keep me inside. It was like a huge transparent beach ball. I imagined pores in this bubble ball that could let in streams of things from the outside, so I could examine them and poke them back out again if I didn’t like them. On the car trip to Albuquerque, the pores were closed, sealed off. When I got to the airport, though, I couldn’t help it, a few of those pores opened up on their own. Defiant pores.
I’d never been on a plane. Uncle Max gave my box of things to a woman in a uniform. Aunt Sandy bought me M&M’s and an illustrated book of fairy tales. I was much too old for fairy tales, and told her so, but she said, "I’ll let you in on a secret. I read them all the time, and I’m ancient!"
We sat in a room, and then we got in a line and walked down a tunnel and sat in narrow seats, and this was the airplane. When the plane started speeding down the runway, I closed up my bubble tight, ready for the crash. I knew that plane wasn’t going to go up in the air like it was supposed to. I bent over and held my knees in crash position, which is what a little card in the seat pocket told you to do. Aunt Sandy patted my back.
We’re gonna die!
I said. The noise was awful, a huge bellowing whooshing and roaring, and all the time Aunt Sandy patted my back as if she didn’t care if she got all smooshed up in the crash or not. Then the front of the plane pointed up and the whole thing, people and all, lifted up and we were flying.
Flying! My nose was against the window the whole way, all across the country. I was up in the sky and we went right through clouds and sometimes we could see puffy white blankets of clouds below us, and sometimes there were no clouds and we could see mountains and rivers and lakes and roads. In one blink, there were whole towns and then, zip, they were gone, and there was a desert and more mountains and hills and flat land. There was green land and brown land. It was a miracle.
It wasn’t anything like driving, where you only see this little bit and that little bit: a house, a tree, a gas station, more houses, more trees, fields. In a car it all starts to run together and you could be anywhere or nowhere. In the plane, you saw it all spread out beneath you, a living map, a wide, wide living photograph, and you were suspended above it and you knew where you were. You were a dot, miles and miles and miles above the state of Oklahoma where you had once lived on a speck of dirt, and you were a dot above the state of Arkansas where you’d even forgotten you’d lived, and you were a dot above Tennessee and Virginia. You little dot.
Or rather me: Dinnie the dot.
The plane came down again without crashing and we went to Aunt Sandy and Uncle Max’s house in Washington, D. C., where there were two bathrooms that worked, and there was clean carpet and white walls with paintings in frames. My father, who’d been away on an opportunity when I’d been kidnapped, called and cried on the phone and wished me luck in my opportunity.
I didn’t like to hear him cry and I didn’t want an opportunity, but Aunt Sandy and Uncle Max seemed very excited, and so I felt I should do what they told me to do until